Why Aren’t Men Outraged by the Republican Effort to Strip Women of Gynecological Care and Maternity Benefits?

Maureen MurdockUncategorized11 Comments

President Trump is the most hostile president the United States has ever had regarding reproductive rights and measures to promote sexual health. The current Republican health care plans (not dead yet) are an attack on obstetric and gynecological care showing nothing but contempt for women.

The assault includes blocking Planned Parenthood from collecting Medicaid reimbursement for a year, forcing 50% of Planned Parenthood clients to seek care elsewhere—in spite of the fact that alternative care does not exist in many states. Medicaid, which pays for half of American births would be cut. States would be allowed to let insurers opt out of guaranteed coverage for maternity care. That’s right, maternity care. Prenatal care and delivery without insurance can range from $9,000 to over $250,000 and with insurance, out of pockets costs range from $3,5000 to $45,000. I couldn’t pay that. Could you?

Three days after he was sworn in, Trump signed a global gag rule prohibiting foreign aid organizations receiving family planning funding from making abortion referrals or lobbying for abortion law reform. His move eliminated more than $8.8 billion in funding affecting the treatment of H.I.V./AIDS in the developing world. He doesn’t care about AIDS in the US either; he has no strategy to address the H.I.V./AIDS crisis in the US.

According to Michelle Goldberg in the NY Times, Trump has appointed anti-abortion, anti-contraception advocates to continue his campaign against women. He appointed Charmaine Yoest, the former president of Americans United for Life as assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, Katy Talento, who has attacked birth control pills on a right-wing blog, to sit on the Domestic Policy Council and Valerie Huber, who promotes abstinence education as chief of staff to assistant secretary for health. He’s uses women to sabotage women’s health. And then there’s Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services, who proclaimed that “there’s not one” woman in America who is unable to afford contraception. “Bring me one. There’s not one.” Really? What walled castle does he live in?

Poor women will bear the brunt of this administration’s policies but it will affect all of us. Americans with private insurance could lose coverage for birth control, abortion, and maternity care. That’s right, maternity care.

Why aren’t men objecting to the loss of health care for the women they love and their unborn children?

This is a concerted attack on women’s ability to control their reproductive lives and obtain prenatal care. This is a power grab not unlike Trump’s self-proclaimed grab of women’s genitals. Where is the backbone of the men in our country? Stand up for women’s reproductive health. We’re more than 50% of the US population. It affects you too.

 

11 Comments on “Why Aren’t Men Outraged by the Republican Effort to Strip Women of Gynecological Care and Maternity Benefits?”

  1. You’re comments contribute powerfully to the voices of reason that will, in time, overcome this ridiculous assault. Thank you.

  2. I don’t understand either why more men are not speaking out about this blatant attack on women’s health underproductive rights. Reproduction is not just about women, and men’s lives are affected by this if they have any capacity for responsibility, so we should all be involved in opposing these ridiculous policies. I will be writing to my Congressman and to male leaders in the Senate to urge them to be more involved in these issues.

  3. Thanks for this info.It is staggering seeing all the anti women policies listed in one blog .Sad but it seems like once again women have to do this together.Where are the men.Not all of them for sure don’t care but we need lots more support

  4. Thank you for this. I am surprised I didn’t notice this myself as I see women lamenting, demonstrating,
    marching: where are the men? Not the powerful indebted to him, afraid to speak, but every husband, son and father?

    1. You’re right that men were marching but I wish they were also writing letters to the editor and calling and writing their representatives. This denigration of women has to stop.

  5. Among all of DJT administration’s affronts, misogyny has always been the driving force and underlying principle. In fact it was a dramatic feature of the campaign, a key animating force. Recall all the violent language, like ” hit her hard,”lock her up,’ “Women, you gotta treat ’em like shit,” “grab ’em by the pussy”.”This wan’t an accident. What we are witnessing is his and the Right’s escalating war on women. Observe the way he and the Republican Congress treat women, excluding them from the deliberative process, and you will see nothing but contempt. This administration is leaping at the opportunity presented to its most extreme supporter who have been pining for this day, to put women in their place, at home and subservient, once and for all. No longer competition in the workplace and unable to control their own bodies. The American Taliban.

  6. Thank you, Maureen, for this appalling list of policies and appointments from Trump! Where IS the outrage? We are an ignorant population. This blog needs to travel.

  7. Thank you, Maureen, for spelling it out so clearly. Your article will be helpful as I try to point out this President’s blatant cruelty to women here in the US, as well as around the world. I too am horrified by the timid lack of reaction from male leaders throughout our government, but also from the business world and health care field. I’m sure many of these gentlemen disagree with our President, but seem to be intimidated by his blustery and reactionary style. Nothing insults women more than when a man is afraid to speak up for the well being of so many mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, friends and strangers. I applaud the efforts of so many journalists and broadcasters, but they cannot be effective without sufficient backup from we citizens who know how wrong our President and his policies are, not only for women, but for human populations everywhere.

    1. Thanks, Janet. I agree. I wish the business community would speak up as well as the men in our lives. I wish they would mobilize and tell Trump and his cronies that they won’t tolerate any more abuse of women.

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